


Written In Scars

by DeadWalker



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (cause let's face it that's much cooler), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Full Shift Werewolves, Future Fic, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadWalker/pseuds/DeadWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wakes up in a hospital with strange wounds, his head hurting, and no memory of how he got there.</p><p>Come to think of it, he doesn't even remember his own name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written In Scars

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be super short but something happened, and it grew legs and ran away from me and I was like “hoe don't do it” and it was like “watch me” and I was like “oh my god".
> 
> And, yeah.
> 
> Title from [Jack Savoretti](https://youtu.be/Ut_ez2Ma4IM?list=PLRq-0uQxNJCv8voEKXWRI1Vww1b1dM84O).

 

The first thing he remembered was the whiteness.

Later on, when people would ask him what he recalled of that time when he first opened his eyes, he would say it was that: the color. Or the lack of it. Everything was colorless, muted, dull. Whites and beiges and grays the color of old bones and blind eyes.

He opened his eyes, and blinked in the hazy light of the afternoon sun, looking up at the dust-colored ceiling and wondering if he was still dreaming. He knew he was at a hospital – he could tell from the smell of disinfectant and antibiotics. The cloying smell of dying bodies and sadness and he had an inkling he had maybe once upon a time spent a lot of his time in a room like this. Dust danced in the air, and he wondered briefly if he was actually dead. His ribs  and chest ached.

It took him half a minute blinking to the flickering light on the machine by his bed to determine that he was very much alive, but he did not, in fact, remember his own name.

Or anything else about himself, save for the fact that he was a young guy.

It took him two more to realize he was not alone in the room.

There was a man asleep in the chair by his bed. Dark hair, serious case of eight o'clock shadow, and eyebrows that could have scared the crap out of the devil himself. The man was slumped in his seat, mouth turned down at the corners and arms crossed over his chest. He looked dead tired.

And pissed, for some reason.

He had no idea who the man was – A friend? Maybe a brother? – but by the looks of him the guy had been there for days. His clothes looked like he'd slept in them. There was a take-out coffee cup on the table beside him.  He couldn't remember if he even had any siblings but the guy must have meant something to him if he had stayed by his bedside for however long he had been unconscious.

He frowned at the IV tubes snaking from his arm to the drip and reached out to poke the man's shoulder. It turned out to be a little weaker than he had hoped for, but it had the effect he was hoping for: the man woke with a start.

The guy's eyes flew open, and swung to him. Now that they were open, he could see they were pale hazel color. The color of an ocean, or a still lake, startling in the white room. “Stiles?” He asked in a voice like gravel and sandpaper. The guy scooted forward in his seat until he could reach his hand and squeeze it tightly between his own. “Oh god,” he said quietly, voice breaking just slightly at the edges, and pressed their joined hands to his lips, eyes shut tight. “Never,  _ ever _ do that again.”

“I–“ He had to stop to swallow. Turned out the guy wasn't the only one with some seriously husky voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I don't know what a 'Stiles' is. Sorry.”

“That's...” The guy's eyes opened again and his face fell, and for some reason he felt bad for being the reason to it. “Stiles, that's your name,” the guy said. “You're Stiles.”

“Oh,” he said stupidly.

_ Stiles _ .

Dark spots danced before his eyes. His ribs ached when he tried to shift on his bed, like stitches pulling against his skin.

“And who're you?” Stiles asked.

The guy let go of his hand.

Stiles watched as his face went through half a dozen different expressions. It was like ripples on the surface of a deep lake, undulating, billowing and spreading over his features, different emotions there and gone almost before he could decipher them – confusion, shock, sorrow, and  _ hurt _ . He looked so heartbroken it made Stiles' own chest feel hollow.

“Stiles, it's me. It's... it's Derek.”

At Stiles' blank look, the man – Derek – reached out again. His hand hovered above his before he pulled it back, like he had been about to take a hold of Stiles' hand again but thought better of it at the last minute.

“You really don't remember?”

He shook his head.

“Anything?”

“I'm sorry.”

The man withdrew his hands and folded them onto his lap. “It's alright,” he said. “I'll call up the nurse.”

“No wait,” Stiles said in a hurry when the guy looked like he might get up and leave. “Please don't... please don't leave. I don't wanna be alone.”

That made Derek freeze for a moment. He looked like he was weighing something in his head. Eventually, he reached over Stiles to press a button on the other side of his bed, the fingers of the hand he used to brace himself on the bed brushing against Stiles' arm.

“I won't leave,” he said as he sat back down again. “I promise.” 

“Good.” Stiles' head swam. He wondered briefly if Derek had also pressed a button for morphine or some other pain med; keeping his eyes open was getting kind of hard. 

His last thought before he passed out again was: Who the hell named their kid  _ Stiles _ ?

▪

When he came to, Derek was still there, but there was also a nurse in pink scrubs and a man on the other side of his bed across from him.

He was older, probably in his fifties, and was sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, smiling weakly. It looked brittle on his face. He looked exhausted, creases at the corners of his eyes fanning out like crow feet and a coffee stain on his uniform shirt.

A sheriff?

Stiles flexed the fingers in the arm that was hooked to the IV, and turned to face him.

“Heya, son,” the man said.

“Dad?” Stiles ventured uncertainly. Well, at least Stiles wasn't an orphan. But if this was his dad, then the dude beside him definitely wasn't his brother – there was no way those two were related. 

The man's gaze flitted over to Derek and they shared a concerned look over Stiles' head but neither of them said anything. He pressed a warm hand on Stiles' arm. “Yeah,” he said. “You kinda scared us there, kiddo.”

“Are you the one who named me Stiles?”

He let out a quiet chuckle. “No, that's a nickname you picked for yourself. After your last name.”

“And what's that?”

“Stilinski.”

Stiles made a face. “God, really?” He said. “ _ Stiles Stilinski _ ?”

The man nodded. “Yeah. But you never did want to go by your real name, so...”

“God, it must be something really awful.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Just a mouthful.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Do you remember how you got here, Stiles?” He asked carefully.

Stiles shook his head but stopped short when he realized that only made him dizzy.

“How about anything before that?”

Another careful head shake. “Vague stuff. Feelings. Like watching something through opaque glass, I guess?” The thing was, he really  _ could  _ _ feel _ the missing pieces, the memories that he knew were supposed to be there but he couldn't reach out to. It was like white noise inside his head. He knew it was all there, but he just wasn't getting a reception. “So not really.”

The nurse stepped forward, a pen poised over a clipboard. “Any sharp pains around your head or neck? Any headaches?” She asked.

“A little, at first. But now everything's just sort of... muggy.”

His dad pressed his mouth in a thin line and sighed deep. The nurse made a few more notes, nodded at him, and disappeared in the corridor with her clipboard. “I'm going to go talk to the doctor,” the sheriff said, and got up from his seat to follow the nurse.

Stiles turned to look at Derek, still in his seat beside his bed. “You're not going anywhere, are you?”

“No,” he said. “I'll be right here.”

“Still be there when I wake up? Cause I think I'm gonna pass out again.”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Stiles mumbled. God, why was he so _tired_? “That's good.” He turned his head to the side and found Derek still looking at him with those striking eyes, a frown on his face.

Who  _ was _ he?

“You're kinda beautiful,” Stiles slurred. “I don't remember you but I hope we're not related cause I'd totally bone you.” He blinked owlishly. “Hey.” He tried to poke Derek's arm again but missed at least by a foot. “Will you go out with me when I get out of here. And my memories back?”

Derek looked like he was valiantly fighting a smile. “Go to sleep, Stiles.”

“Is that a yes? I'll take it as a yes.” He dragged his hand back and folded them both over his stomach. He furrowed his brow as a thought struck him. “I hope the other me has already come out, cause I think I'd totally go for both girls and guys and it would be really awkward if it happened this way.”

Derek didn't say anything. He looked worried as hell, like he was afraid Stiles would disappear if he so much as blinked. But he did snort, followed by a small, private smile that made Stiles grin back at him.

Stiles closed his eyes.

▪

On day two, he learned he actually had injuries besides the major head trauma when the nurse walked in with a armful of gauze and antiseptics. She was the same dark-haired one who had been there earlier.

“For the wounds on your side and legs, honey,” she explained when Stiles gave her a quizzical look. “I'll just change the dressings.” Her name tag read 'Melissa', and there was something familiar in her eyes.

It took Stiles a moment to realize that Derek was nowhere to be seen. He decided he wasn't gonna panic. He was definitely not going to panic. Derek was probably coming back. And he didn't even know the guy, why would he care if he was there or not? That was the moment when his brain decided this was absolutely the time to freak out, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His heart battered against his rib cage, making the monitor beside his bed bleep.

The nurse noticed, and laid a reassuring hand on his elbow. “Stiles? What's wrong?”

“De-Derek?” Was all he managed to get out.

Her smile softened. “He's just down the hall, honey. He'll be back soon. It's okay.”

The hammering in his chest quieted down, and Stiles closed his eyes.

Nobody would tell him what had actually happened to him - besides saying he had been in 'an accident' – but as the nurse hiked up his hospital gown, he could see the gashes. Two of the deepest ones ran all the way through his torso, from his right shoulder to his left hip and dipping to his left thigh. One more shallow went right across his stomach, and a set of four, suspiciously resembling claw marks, cut horizontally across his right calf.

A pale scar at the back of his hand and another on his neck were obviously from injuries from a long time ago.

He touched his fingers at each of the wounds, the neat stitches and the old white scars, and wondered what kind of a life he had forgotten.

▪

Eventually, he also found out things about his life.

He was a young guy. And Californian, born and bred. He also learned he was two weeks away from his twentieth birthday, and that for the past year and a half, he had been studying in UCLA. The sheriff had been wearing a shirt with the school's logo on the second time he had swung by to check on Stiles.

“Double major,” said the kid who had crashed in on the second day after Stiles had properly woken up and introduced himself as 'Your best friend Scott'. “In English, and Mythology and Folklore.” He beamed, and dug a stack of _Star Trek_ box sets from his back pack.

Stiles thought he sounded weirdly proud of that, although he couldn't for the life of him figure out why would someone choose folklore as their major.

When he asked if they were still somewhere near LA, Scott said they were still in California but in a town called Beacon Hills now – Stiles' hometown, he was told – and that's where the accident had happened. He'd been on his summer vacation for only two weeks.

He had already met his dad, the sheriff in Beacon Hills, and if the worry on his face was anything to go by, Stiles was all he had. It had been the two of them against the world until Stiles moved away for college. Stiles' mom had died when he was eight.

 _So that's why the hospital smell was so familiar_ , Stiles thought idly.

That afternoon, Stiles asked for a mirror. He still had no idea what he looked like. Scott had given him an uneasy look but disappeared to the hall, only to return moments later with a pocket-sized vanity mirror. Stiles took it, and blinked at his own reflection: pale skin, wild brown hair, and a constellation of moles across the side of his neck and jaw. Honey brown eyes blinked blearily back at him.

“Huh,” he'd finally said. He touched his index finger to his nose. “At least I'm kinda hot.”

He wondered at the pale, circular scar in the shape of a crescent moon at his throat but he didn't ask about it, only traced his fingers along the curve of it. It didn't feel like the rest of his scars, but something more important. Like it was put there on purpose.

▪

On day three, Stiles woke up so someone humming quietly by his bed. He opened his eyes to a pretty, brunette girl smiling sheepishly at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Didn't mean to wake you up.” She had dimples on both of her cheeks when she smiled.

Stiles waved a dismissive hand at her. “'S okay. Who are you?”

“Oh!” The girl's eyes went wide. “Right, sorry. I'm Allison. Scott's girlfriend, but we're also friends.” She gestured between them vaguely. “You and me, I mean.”

Stiles held out his hand, and she took it, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Allison.”

It turned out Allison hadn't come empty handed. She dug out a super-size pack of Twizzlers from her bag and placed them on the nightstand by Stiles' bed. “Don't tell your dad,” she whispered.

Stiles decided then and there he was glad they were friends.

After Scott and Allison, Stiles had been introduced to the rest of his friends. Or reintroduced, more like. Scott waved them in, and they flooded into the room like a storm–swelled river. Stiles suspected they had been hovering outside his hospital room waiting for the go ahead.

The blonde bombshell introduced herself as Erica. She sashayed to Stiles' bedside and stuck out her hand, chewing gum and flashing flawless white teeth from behind her cherry red lipstick, before she declared she “can't do this formal shit anymore, sorry,” and flung her arms around Stiles' neck. He could smell her shampoo as she squeezed him tightly but carefully, mindful of his stitches. “Nice to have you back, chicken pie,” she murmured into his ear, and Stiles hugged her back awkwardly.

The big guy from behind her have Stiles' shoulder a firm pat. “I'm Boyd,” he said. “Good to see you alive.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Sort of spooked us there.”

Stiles didn't know what to say, so he just nodded.

The pissed-looking jock who nodded to him stiffly but still looked relieved was Jackson, and the guy beside him, smiling kindly, said his name was Danny.

“This is the last time I'm coming to see you at a hospital, Stilinski,” the Jackson guy said. Danny smacked his arm.

Stiles had a feeling ignoring this guy was something he did on a regular basis. “Whatever,” he said, and turned his attention to the two remaining people in the room: the pretty read head, her head tilted in an expression that might have looked bored if not for the worried edge to her smile, and the kid who had been hovering behind the rest of the group, with a head of curly hair and a nervous air to him.

“Lydia,” the red head said, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and put her purse down on an empty chair before stepping forward. “It's good you're not dead, because I would've dragged you back from the afterlife and killed you myself.” She smoothed Stiles' hair back from his face and kissed his cheek. “Glad it didn't come to that,” she said.

Stiles blinked at her. “Geez. You must have been like my favorite friend.”

“The best.” Lydia sniffed dismissively. She glanced at Scott when he made a rude noise in protest. “Or the second best, anyway. Though I always thought I was secretly your favorite.”

“I can see that.”

“You owe me a coffee for almost getting killed.”

Lydia stepped back, and turned to look at the guy behind them. Scott motioned to the kid to step forward but he looked stayed rooted to his spot, shifting his weight from foot to foot near the door and twisting his hands together. “Stiles,” Scott said, and snagged the boy's sleeve to tug him to stand by the bed. “This is Isaac.”

“Hi, Isaac,” Stiles said. He tried to smile encouragingly. 

It must have worked because something in the guy's expression broke – sort of collapsed in on itself. He took three steps forward and practically fell on Stiles, punching the air out of his lungs. He buried his face into Stiles' shoulder and let out a noise that was almost like a... a whine?

“Okay there,” Stiles said. He wiggled one of his hands free so he could pat the kid on the shoulder. “It's all good. You're not my boyfriend, are you? I guess I could kinda see it. I can't remember if I had a type, but you might be it?”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because the guy jumped back like he had been burned. “No!” Isaac squeaked. For some bizarre reason, he shot a slightly panicked look at Derek, who seemed content to just quietly sit in the corner and observe, before turning back to Stiles. “Just a friend.”

Two people in the room let out a quiet snort, one of them definitely Jackson. The other one might have been Lydia.

Stiles lifted his hands up. “Okay,” he said. “Jesus, sorry. No boyfriend, then.” He eyed the three girls in the room speculatively. “Maybe I have a girlfriend, then?”

This time Lydia definitely snorted. “Dream on, Stilinski,” she said as Erica burst out into really unattractive guffawing laugh and Allison shook her head, giggling.

“Can I tell him?” Erica asked once she had calmed down. She rubbed her palms together with a wicked grin.

“Tell me what?” Stiles asked before Boyd slapped a palm over her mouth, Erica honest to got bit him, and Scott yelled “Okay, moving on!” over the ensuing commotion. Jackson and Danny seemed to have gotten in some sort of a slapping contest.

Then Derek cleared his throat. The minor chaos died down instantly, like dumping a cold water on a bunch of screaming toddlers. “Guys,” he said evenly. “Stiles needs to rest.”

They all piled out of the room almost as soon as they had entered. But not before each and every one of them had either patted his arm, ruffled his hair or swept their hands across his shoulders. It was like they all tried to touch him at least once. Odd.

▪

He drifted in and out of consciousness.

It was irritating, more than anything, and made it even harder for him to keep a track of what he remembered and what he didn't. As it turned out, he really didn't remember much of anything.

He knew he should probably have been scared. But not having anything to compare this experience to, having no memories of this life that he had lived with these people, he just felt unmoored. Rootless. Maybe he would have been more scared if he knew what he had lost.

Stiles figured he owed at least some of his bravery to the mystery guy who kept watch over him, day and night. Through all of it, no matter what time of day it was, Derek was almost always there. Stiles would start awake from an unsettling dream full of shapes and sounds that made no sense and open his eyes to Derek's familiar form slumped in his seat, ankle crossed over his other leg. Sometimes he woke up to Derek's hand gently covering his, or leaning on the bed hands on top of the covers, head pillowed in his arms. Like even the couple of extra feet between them if he slept in his chair was too much.

One time, Stiles woke up from a mucky dream with a scream in his throat, only to have it die on its way out when someone radiating heat and smelling of cologne and old leather had leaned close and pressed their lips on Stiles' hairline. He slept dreamlessly after that.

Derek never spoke of it, but Stiles knew it had been him.

He always asked is Stiles would like to be left alone, if he'd like privacy, or for someone else to keep him company.

Stiles always shook his head. For some reason, he made Stiles feel safe. “No,” he said. “Stay. I like it when you're here.”

▪

It was strange, really.

That night, his bones ached and his skin itched and he couldn't sleep, and he lay awake in his bed wondering about his friends.

It wasn't like he didn't like them – he very much did, of each and every one of them, even the obnoxious jock Jackson who seemed hellbent on not letting anyone know he actually cared about Stiles. But he couldn't figure out why they would want to be friends _. _ They had nothing in common. They didn't go to the same school, and when Stiles had asked, Scott had admitted they had known each other in back in high school but they hadn't actually hung out together, then, either.

“Then why do we hang out now?” Stiles asked.

Scott just mumbled something about it being complicated, and changed the subject.

It was baffling.

And Scott was a terrible liar.

And more than anything else, Stiles wondered how Derek fit into all of this.

Derek was clearly older than the rest of them. He wasn't related to anyone of them. He didn't fit. Erica, the traitor, had actually burst out laughing when he had asked if he was a brother or an uncle or maybe a distant cousin.

“Oh no, honey,” she had said, shaking her head. “Definitely not related.”

“Then who is he? Why is he here?” Because Stiles couldn't for the life of him figure out why someone non-related who seemed like the odd-man-out, even in this friend group, might have a vested interest in Stiles and what happened to him. Why did he seem so worried? Why did he _care_ so much?

During his stay in the hospital, Derek had left his bedside only handful of times. He usually slept in that chair he so frequently occupied, and the only time he agreed to leave was when one of their friends came in and physically dragged him out. It was impressive, really. The man was built like a mountain. And it seemed the only two people who could get him to leave with just a look, without laying a finger on him, were Lydia and Erica.

Erica had just tapped her wine-colored nails on the keyboard of her laptop before smiling at him enigmatically, and getting up to put the  _ Iron Man 3 _ DVD she had brought with her into the player under the TV. “You'll find out.”

▪

It took Stiles almost four days to notice the ring.

He blamed the head injury, and general state of disorientation.

It was golden, and simple, and it circled the ring finger of his left hand, catching the faint light streaming through the window of his room. Stiles lifted his hand, and blinked down at it.

_Huh._

He turned to look at Scott, snoozing with his head resting on his hand in the chair where Derek had sat before. “Dude.” He snapped his fingers. “Dude.  _ Scott _ .”

Scott woke with a snort. “Huh,” he slurred. “What? What is it?”

“Am I married?”

“What?”

“Married, Scott. Am I married?” He wiggled his left hand in front of Scott's face.

That seemed to finally clear the last wisps of sleep from Scott's head. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, sort of,” he said. “Crap. I didn't even think to remind you.”

“'Sort of'? How do you mean 'sort of' how can someone be 'sort of' married?” Stiles brought his hand closer to his face to get a closer look at the ring. “For how long?”

“Six months, maybe. Or seven? Not sure.”

“To whom? Is it a dude or a chick. Do I know them? Wait, is it one of you guys who's been here?”

“I – uh...” Scott faltered. “It's –“

He was cut off by the door swinging open and Derek stepping through, carrying a stack of books and two takeout bags of something that smelled absolutely  _ heavenly. _

Stiles' eyes snapped to the bags. “Oh my god, dude,” he said. “What  _ is _ that?”

Scott made his escape when Stiles was distracted. He forgot about the ring. 

▪

He had to stay for one more week.

The doctors couldn't figure out what had caused the memory loss, and they didn't want to let Stiles go before he had been cleared of any and all probable causes. They feared major internal bleeding in his brain, or tumors, and nerve damage.

They never said a word, but something in the expressions of both his friends' and his dad's faces told him that they already knew what was wrong with him. It just wasn't something that these doctors could cure.

The MRI machines they used to scan Stiles' head scared him, and he couldn't figure out why. They made his skin  _ crawl  _ and he couldn't stay still long enough for them to complete the scan. Not until Scott practically growled at the doctor treating stiles and demanded to be let into the examination room. He took a hold of Stiles' shaking hand, and held it through the whole procedure. He said he had done it before. Stiles was just glad he wasn't alone with the clanking and whirring machines.

▪

The days dragged on slowly.

Because Stiles couldn't think of anything else to do, and because everything exhausted him, he slept. And when Stiles slept, he dreamed. And he dreamed of the strangest things – he couldn't quite make sense of any of it.

He dreamed of forests, vast and dark and full of noises that were not human. About streams and clearings washed colorless in the light of the moon. He dreamed about running.

What he couldn't make sense of was how he dreamed of the wolves. They were bigger than any wolf he'd seen real life - not that he had seen many, there were no wolves in California anymore - and they were  _ beautiful _ . They were pure power, and shadows, and wilderness made into flesh. Lithe muscles rippling under a coat of sleek fur, sharp teeth, and their howls echoing in the night. There were six of them, and they always kept pace with him, slinking through the underbrush like shadows and mist, swallowed by the night and getting spit out again.

And in those dreams, Stiles wasn't afraid. He never ran away from them.

He ran  _ with  _ them.

They sped through the trees, paws and a pair of human feet kicking up dead leaves and moss, birds scattering in the foliage around them as they ran soundlessly through the woods. A pack of wolves with a boy in their midst. The biggest of the animals was a jet-black wolf paws the size of dinner plates, and its eyes shone red in the night. In every dream, it was the one that ran closest to Stiles, its fur brushing his shins with every step, tongue lolling out of its sharp mouth.

It looked like it was laughing, and Stiles grinned back at it.

This time, Stiles didn't even try to fight the exhilaration that bubbled in his veins. He tipped his head back and the laugh that spilled from his mouth turned into a howl. The beasts beside him joined in, the black wolf the loudest, shaking leaves from trees and scaring deer and foxes from their path with its volume.

Stiles woke up with a start. And he felt so lonely it hurt.

Derek was still there. “Bad dream?” He asked, and reached to hand Stiles the plastic cup with a straw in it form his bedside table. He looked worried, with deep lines between his brows and around his frowning mouth.

“Not exactly.” Stiles took a sip of water and when he turned to give the cup back, he thought he saw the same red in Derek's eyes that he had seen in the big black wolf's. He blinked, and it was gone. “Have you ever seen wolves in California?” He asked.

Derek shook his head. “The common wolf went extinct here like ninety years ago. There aren't any left.” Stiles could have sworn there was something weird in Derek's expression, he  just couldn't put his finger on it. “Why do you ask?”

“I keep dreaming of them.”

Derek raised his brow, looking momentary surprised, but said nothing for a while. “Was that what you were dreaming of just now?” He asked eventually.

“Yeah. And not just normal wolves, but these huge things the size of bears.” When Stiles glanced back at Derek, he was just looking at him, so Stiles went on. “They aren't chasing me, it's not a bad dream and I –“ He paused. Come to think of it, now it kinda sounded crazy. “I feel like I _know_ them.”

“Are they always the same wolves?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Stiles furrowed his brow. “How did you know?”

“Six of them, one sandy brown, two tawny ones, one almost white, one charcoal gray?”

“I –“ Stiles felt his mouth hanging open. He knew Derek was right even before he mentally counted off the wolves in his head. “Yeah,” he said. "And one jet black, bigger than all the rest.”

“And one jet black,” Derek said, eyes shining oddly. He leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees. “Were you afraid?”

“No. I think they kept me safe.” Stiles pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He felt dizzy all of a sudden. “Derek, what's going on? What are they and how do you know? Why am I dreaming of wolves?”

Derek took a gentle hold of his hands, and Stiles noticed that they were trembling. Slight tremors ran all the way from Stiles' feet, through his torso and to the tips of his fingers, making his teeth chatter. “You asked Scott why we, this group of people who have been here to see you, were friends, right?” Derek said quietly.

“What's that go to do with anything?”

Derek's smile was reassuring. “It has got to do with everything.” He let go of Stiles' hands to pick up his phone, and tapped at the screen. He lifted the phone to his ear. When a tinny voice at the other end signaled that the other person had picked up, Derek only said, “Pack meeting. We're telling him.”

▪

They told him everything.

The whole rag tag bunch of kids had flooded Stiles' hospital room once again, summoned by Derek's call. They each took a seat, dragging more chairs from the corridor and other rooms, and settled around Stiles' bed. His dad was there, and Melissa, too. Scott had told him she looked familiar because she was Scott's mom, and had practically raised Stiles as a surrogate mom after he had turned twelve and his own mother had died. She closed the door, and Derek took Stiles' hand before he began.

They told him about the werewolves, about Derek's uncle Peter and how he had bit Scott when they were still in high school, almost four years ago. How Derek had killed Peter, and how he had come back again. They told him about their pack,  _ Derek's _ pack, and how Derek had recruited each of them. Took them in.

When Stiles asked, Derek pointed out each wolf in the room, one by one.

“The tawny ones?” Stiles asked. He was propped up in his bed, wearing his own (he was told) _Captain America_ t-shirt and a mountain of pillows stacked behind him.

Derek pointed at Isaac, then at Jackson.

“The sandy brown?”

He pointed at Scott, who gave a goofy little wave.

“The white and charcoal gray one?”

He pointed first at Erica, arms crossed and smirking, and then at Boyd, standing behind her. Erica growled playfully.

When he asked if they were all wolves, Derek shook his head. “Allison, Lydia, and Danny are human. And so is your dad and Melissa.”

“But they're part of your pack?”

“Lydia and Danny and Allison are, yes. Just like you. And your dad and Scott's mom, in a way, by proxy.”

Stiles stared at his friends in the light of this new revelation, and he felt a little lightheaded.

_He was standing in a room with a pack of wolves._

Finally, he turned at Derek. “And the black wolf, bigger than the rest? That was you?” They'd said Derek was the Alpha. That the pack was his, and he owned the territory around Beacon Hills, the same land that used to belong to his family before the fire.

Derek nodded, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were glowing red. Like fresh blood on snow.

Without thinking, Stiles reached out and placed a palm at the side of Derek's face. “Show me the rest,” he said.

Derek smiled, and opened his mouth wide. As Stiles watched, his canines elongated, grew sharp and long. Fur sprouted from his cheeks and ran along his jaw, and his ears went pointed at the tips. Stiles hadn't removed his hand, so he felt the bones shift and fur grow out beneath his palm. And he didn't even blink. It was crazy and yet it felt like the most natural thing to be witnessing. He lifted his other hand to cradle Derek's face in his hands. “You're beautiful,” he breathed out.

Derek let out a pleased sound. Like a low rumble that bubbled up from his throat, and he turned his head to press his nose into Stiles' palm. He let the wolf fade, and Stiles' was holding a fully human face between his hands again.

His heart gave a lurch in his chest when he realized there was something he hadn't asked yet. “And what about me?” He said. “Am I – am I a wolf?”

“No. You're human.”

“And what – what am I to you?” He glanced around and took in the faces, all looking at him. “Allison is with Scott, Lydia and Jackson are an item, and you said Danny is the resident computer genius.” He let his hands drop from Derek's face. “What am I to the pack?”

Derek lifted his left hand. At Stiles' blank look, he lifted a brow, and waggled his ring finger pointedly.

Wait a minute, his  _ ring _ – ?

“Oh my god,” Stiles blurted out.

He gaped at Derek's hand, where a gold ring identical to the one in his gleamed dully. His eyes swung to Scott who looked instantly awkward. “ _ He's _ my husband?” He asked Scott incredulously. To his defense, his voice sounded only a little shrill. “ _ Him _ ? And you didn't  _ tell me?” _

“Uh,” Scott said.

“Oh my god.” Stiles thumped back to lean on his pillows but kept his eyes on Derek. Derek who was now blushing slightly, of all imaginable things. The tips of his ears were flushed red. “Dude, I can't believe this.” He could feel the mad grin stretching across his face. He made grabby hands in the general direction of Derek's face. “Come closer so I can touch you again.”

Scott coughed and rose from his seat. “Maybe the rest of us should...go have a coffee or something. Give you guys some privacy.”

“No way I'm missing out on this,” Jackson announced. “This is priceless.”

“This is even weirder than when they first started dating,” his dad said to Melissa, who looked like she was trying to hold a laugh.

Allison took a hold of Scott's hand and tugged him back to his seat.

Stiles ignored all of them. He made impatient gestures at Derek, motioning him closer, until he got up from his chair, and moved to sit down at the edge of the bed, warm against Stiles' legs. When he was close enough so he could reach, Stiles snagged a hold of his shirt just in case Derek changed his mind and tried to retreat somewhere where Stiles couldn't get his hands on him.

“We're married?” He asked, and watched Derek take a hold of his free hand and lace their fingers together. 

“Well, like the pack likes to call it, 'wolf married'. Which basically means that we went through the mate rituals defined by the old Hale pack laws, but in the eyes of the state of California, we aren't actually married.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over the ring in Stiles' finger. “The rings are just for show. You insisted on them.”

Stiles sniffed. “Well, makes sense. How else all the non-wolf people are supposed to know you're mine.” He squinted at Derek. “Why didn't you just tell me?”

“It didn't seem relevant.”

“Didn't seem relev –? Oh my god, Derek. How is someone being married 'not relevant'?” He glared accusingly at the rest of the pack.  ~~~~“Why didn't anyone tell me?”

“We thought your head trauma didn't lower your IQ,” Lydia quipped from her seat.

“Hey!”

“I can't believe it took him like over a week to figure out,” Danny whispered too loudly at Allison, somewhere off to their left.

Allison nodded thoughtfully. “I thought we'd have to tell him eventually if he didn't figure it out. Before they went back home and he saw the honeymoon photos on the walls.”

Derek just shrugged. “Figured you'd either find out on your own or you'd remember by the time that kind of information became relevant.”

“You let me act like an idiot and ask you out!”

Erica let out a rude noise, something between a bark and a hysterical burst of laughter. “Oh my god,” she squeaked. “You lost your whole goddamn memory and the first thing you do when you wake up is hit on  _ your own hubby _ ?”

Boyd burst out to a hearty laugh right after, and after only a few moments the entire pack, including his dad, was laughing so hard they almost had tears streaming down their faces. Isaac nearly fell off his chair.

“I was flattered,” Derek said. His grin looked like it might break his face in half. What a bastard.

Stiles buried his head in his free hand. “Oh my god,” he said. He peered out from between his fingers at Derek. “And this isn't a joke or some gross misunderstanding? You actually agreed, of your own free will, to marry me?”

“Not a joke. And yes.”

Stiles tugged at the shirt still bunched in his grasp so Derek would lean closer. “You're  mine ? ”

This time the smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, and his whole face softened. “Yes. And you're  _ mine _ .” Derek looked so delighted, and feral, and  _ possessive _ , like the fact that he could utter those words and mean them were the single most important accomplishment in his life. Like having Stiles went above and beyond anything and everything else. Not like he was complaining, but it was a bit strange, was all.

“Jackpot,” Stiles crowed and punched the air for good measure before shuffling even closer. “Can I touch you?” Derek raised a single eyebrow and Stiles hastily continued “Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter. Just cuddle or something. I don't even really know you.”

“We've been touching all this time.”

“No, but not now that I know I have a permission to get all handsy with you.”

Instead of answering, Derek reached out and cupped Stiles' face in both hands. They were warm, a little calloused, and felt like they were made for the shape of Stiles' face. Derek's thumbs swept under his eyes and over his cheekbones – he smiled as Stiles instinctively leaned into the touch. It made Derek's whole face soften in a way that almost sent Stiles' into a cardiac arrest and the heart monitor beside the bed bleep frantically. Which was kinda stupid, seeing as this was his husband and he was a grown-ass man, not some eleven-year-old with their first crush.

“This alright?” Derek asked quietly.

“Yeah.” Stiles settled his own hands on Derek's arms and let his eyes fall shut. “Perfect.” He was quiet for a while, just listened to their breathing. The rest of the pack seemed to pretend to busy themselves with something else to give them the illusion of privacy. Then, “Derek?”

“Yeah?”

“Why wasn't I turned?”

Derek lifted his shoulders in a tiny shrug, so as not to dislodge his hands. “It was your choice. You wanted to remain human. You didn't want the bite, and everybody respected that choice.” Derek smiled and Stiles pressed his face more firmly into his hands. “Although I always said you'd make the most beautiful wolf.”

Stiles grinned at him and leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Derek's mouth. “You bet your ass I would.”

▪

He finally got to go home on a sunny Tuesday.

The doctors had stitched and dressed his wounds and treated everything they could, but the amnesia left them baffled. They didn't know what to do, so they said Stiles might as well go home – if his memory was to return, it would do so on its own.

They stood in front of a house, a gorgeous, white house with a wrap-around porch, its windows open in the gentle summer evening. They had driven up the driveway in a sleek black Camaro, Stiles with his elbow propped against the passenger-side window and humming absently as he watched the forest flash by. Derek had told him everything he saw on the way there belonged to him. To  _ them _ . And the big two-story house nestled in the middle of the woods was theirs, built from the ashes of the old Hale house.

They stood on the front lawn, Stiles looking up at the house, the pack standing quiet behind them. The cars behind them ticked quietly as their engines cooled. Derek was standing right beside him, so close their shoulders bumped together. His eyes were on Stiles.

“You ready?” He asked gently.

Stiles nodded. He held out his hand without taking his eyes off the front porch, and Derek took it without a word.

If Stiles had had problems believing before, pretty much all of his apprehensions would have disappeared the moment he stepped through the door. There was jacket hanging in the hallway that looked vaguely familiar. Sneakers and ratty Converse shoes littered the entryway – too many of them to belong to just one person – and a well-worn red hoodie was carelessly thrown over the stair banister. Derek was obviously more leather-and-Henleys type of guy. The stuff had to be his.

Stiles stopped just inside the front door to inspect a photo on the wall. It was of him and Derek, obviously taken in mid-winter. They were both wearing thick coats and hats and equally goofy smiles as they beamed at the camera. Derek's arm was around Stiles' waist. Stiles' hands seemed to be more busy stuffing snow down Derek's jacket.

“Why are your eyes closed?” Stiles asked, finger tracing the glass of the photograph frame.

He felt more than heard Derek step closer behind him. Stiles had let go of his hand when they had entered the foyer, but Derek never went far. His fingers brushed Stiles' waist lightly. “Because of the camera flash. My eyes reflect it and would ruin the shot.”

Stiles tipped his head to the side. “Huh.”

They walked through the entire house like that. Stiles in the lead, stopping every now and then to look more closely at something, Derek a few steps behind. He answered if Stiles had a question, but otherwise he seemed happy to just let him wander around. The rest of the pack had insisted on accompanying them but had retreated to the living room to give Stiles some space. He could hear them bickering on the couches about what channel to watch.

There were leftover Thai food in the fridge, and a picture of Stiles wearing Mickey mouse ears stuck on the fridge door with a magnet shaped like a heart. Someone had taped a post-it there with the words “STOP PUTTING EMPTY CEREAL BOXES BACK ON THE SHELF, STILES” written on it. A smiling kissy face had been drawn beneath the words in a different color marker. “Boohoo, grandpa” was scrawled right under.

There were two novelty coffee mugs on the counter, one of them said “BEAST”. The other was printed with the picture of a garish red bow and the word “BEAUTY”. 

Stiles pointed at the mugs. “I'm obviously the 'beauty', right?” He said with a raised eyebrow.

Derek rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

"Did I buy those?"

This time Derek actually laughed - a quiet, warm chuckle. “No,” he said. “I did.”

Stiles walked through the living room, tracing his fingers lightly along the spines of the books, and then headed upstairs. He walked past two doors, each of them slightly ajar, and peeked inside. They were both bedrooms with identical queen beds and a dresser, and it looked like no-one was using them. Stiles looked at Derek questioningly, and he explained sometimes pack members stayed for a few nights. Usually Isaac.

He ended up in the master bedroom, a large room facing east to the rising sun, and halted in the middle of it. A glass of stale-looking water and a worn paperback were sitting on one of the nightstands. The other was cluttered with keys, phone charging cords, loose change, and a stack of novels that looked like they came out of a thrift shop. Stiles tilted his head to read the title s .  _ Ass Goblins of Auschwitz  _ read one of them. A book titled  _ HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! _ and  _ Never Suck A Dead Man's Hand: And Other Life (and Death) Lessons from the Front Lines of Forensics  _ sat on top of it.

They even had a walk-in closet.

“Plaid?” Stiles asked as he tugged the sleeve of one of the shirts. There was a pair of Spider-Man boxers on the floor.

Derek shrugged. His attention was still focused on the books on what had to be Stiles' nightstand, and he was smiling in a way that suggested he wasn't really aware of it. Softly. “Plaid and graphic tees is your thing,” he said absently.

Once or twice, he thought he caught Derek looking at him. Really _looking,_ something so raw and brittle on his features that it made Stiles' chest feel two sizes too small. He had forgotten that it wasn't just Stiles who had lost the memories of his past and the life he was living. He had taken something from Derek, too – a partner, a husband, a mate. There was a whole history here, breathing life into the spaces of this house and he knew next to nothing about it. He couldn't even pretend to be the Stiles these people had lost.

He put out a hand to stop Derek as he was walking past him to go back downstairs. “Do you think I'll ever get my memories back?” Stiles asked him. He kinda hated how small his voice sounded.

Derek opened his arms, and Stiles stepped into his embrace without even thinking about it. A reflex, clearly. He wound his arms around Derek's waist and burrowed his face to the curve of his shoulder. Derek's arms circled his shoulders, and squeezed gently. “We've already reached out to someone who might be able to help,” he murmured into Stiles' hair. “We'll meet him tomorrow.”

“A doctor?”

“A friend.”

“Is he some sort of supernatural being?” Stiles paused. “Please tell me it's not a fairy or something. I don't think I'm ready for that yet.”

He could feel Derek's smile against his temple. “Not a fairy. An emissary.” He carded his fingers carefully through the hair at the nape of Stiles' neck. “Are you tired?” He asked after a while.

“A little.”

“Do you –“ Derek seemed to mull something over. He shifted awkwardly. “Do you want me to sleep in the guest room?”

Stiles lifted his head to look Derek in the eye. “Why?” he asked. He had a pretty good idea why, but he asked anyway.

“I don't want you to get uncomfortable.”

“Dude. We're an item. I have a ring in my finger, and that means I'm gonna damn well sleep in the same bed with my boo.” Stiles wiggled the finger in question for emphasis.

“Would you believe I've told you like eight times not to call me 'boo'?”

Stiles preened.

“And that was in the past month.”

“I obviously haven't forgotten the important stuff.”

Stiles was quiet until they were lying in bed, Derek's arm curled around his waist and his heartbeat under Stiles' ear. He could still hear the rest of the pack murmuring downstairs, the sounds of some TV program in the background.

“So what's the story?” Stiles asked finally. “With us, I mean.”

“The story?”

“Yeah like, how did we get to be together?” The heartbeat under his cheek remained steady, and he laid a hand carefully on Derek's chest, fingers splayed. “Please tell me it wasn't like a grand-gesture-YA-novel-type-of deal where only the power of love could save us and we can't function without one another.”

Stiles lifted his gaze just in time to see the corner of Derek's mouth twinge. “Not quite,” he said. “You always said you don't need anyone to save you.”

Derek laid careful fingers on the pattern of scars on Stiles' arm, the pale grooves and fresh bandages like a map on his skin, telling stories of every single beast and creature of nightmare that had ever gotten their claws on him.

His very own bestiary.

“And neither do I. But you thought that we should, and I quote, 'hold hands while each of us saves ourselves'.”

Stiles pressed his smile to the warm skin of Derek's shoulder. “That does sound more reasonable.”

▪

The next morning, Stiles walked downstairs to find a stranger in the kitchen. Derek had left in the early morning hours after whispering that he needed to take care of something before they went to see this Deaton. He had tugged the covers more tightly around Stiles, and closed the door quietly behind him.

The stranger was seated in one of the chairs by the mahogany dinner table, his legs crossed at the ankle and propped on the edge of the table. He was reading the day's paper. Stiles couldn't have said why, but something about his sharp eyes and air of imminent danger told him this was a Hale.

Something also told him the man was not a man, but that there was a wolf in his kitchen.

The man's face split into a sardonic grin as soon as he spotted Stiles. “Ah, there you are,” he said languidly. When Stiles stepped closer, he noticed the man was using one of the kitchen knives to dig under his nails. “How is your head, Stiles?”

Stiles decided he should keep his distance, just in case, and stopped by the breakfast bar. That left both the counter and the table between him and the stranger. “Who are you?”

The man placed the knife on the table top and smiled enigmatically. “Ah, how rude of me.” He rose from his seat in one fluid motion and strolled to the other side of the breakfast bar. He extended a hand. “Peter,” he said, as Stiles took it. “Peter Hale. Derek's uncle.”

“The one who rose from the dead?”

Peter grinned even wider. “The very same. I see you've heard the tales.”

“Derek told me.”

“Ah.”

He fell quiet, and Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Why are you here?” He finally asked.

“I needed to see if it was true.”

“If what was true?”

“That you couldn't remember a thing.” Peter sniffed dismissively and returned to inspecting his nails. “Guess it was bound to happen eventually.” Stiles only raised his eyebrows at him, so Peter went on. “I told Derek humans are breakable, that he should be careful.”

“I think you should leave,” Stiles said. Despite the hair standing on end at the back of his neck, he turned his back on Peter and strolled to the coffeemaker. He tried to appear as nonchalant as possible, but probably wasn't doing a very good job.

Peter chuckled. “I didn't much like you, you know,” he said as Stiles was rummaging through the cabinets for the coffee mugs.

Stiles snorted sarcastically. “Geez. Thanks, man,” he said, but Peter held up his hand to quiet him.

“I didn't much like you then, and, to be honest, I'm not sure we are best buddies even now –“ Peter plucked a loose thread on his sleeve absently. “ – but I do know that to Derek, you are everything.” He stopped fiddling with the cuff and lifted his gaze to look at Stiles' piercingly. “He doesn't have much in the way of family anymore, but he has you.”

Stiles had so swallow. The dude was making him majorly uncomfortable and he hadn't been talking to him for more than five minutes. He closed the cupboard to look at Peter. “So what are you saying?” He asked eventually.

“I'm saying you'd do well to remember that you are not trying to get well just for you. You're also doing it for someone else who is counting on you.” At that, Peter rose from his seat and smoothed down the front of his shirt. He glanced at his watch, like he had somewhere to be, and then back at Stiles. This time, though, his eyes were almost soft. “And you are family, Stiles, after all. So, hope you get well.”

And with that, he was gone.

▪

They met Deaton that afternoon. Lydia had appeared behind Stiles' door around noon, twirling a set of car keys and a sleek Porsche behind her in the driveway. “It's time,” was the only thing she said before ushering Stiles to the passenger-seat.

Deaton greeted them with a tight smile at the door of a place that looked like a veterinary clinic.

No, strike that, it _was_ a vet clinic. There was a bowl of complimentary dog treats on the counter and aw 'closed' sign hanging on the front door. The dogs yapped them from their little crates and cats paced in their cages as Lydia walked Stiles to the back to a cluttered office. There was a desk littered with papers and three dirty coffee mugs, pens, and dog treats, an old armchair, and a couch in a really unattractive shade of green by one wall. The shades were drawn.

As Deaton closed the door behind them, he looked kindly at Stiles. “How is your head, Stiles?”

“Empty,” he said. It was true. No use lying to this guy, was there, if he was here to help. He muggy buzzing in his head, the white noise, was getting worse every day. Like the a hive of bees trying to break free from wherever they had been locked up.

Deaton's smile was even tighter this time. “Ah. Do you know who I am?”

“Alan Deaton? The emissary?” He glanced around uncertainly. “And a... vet?”

“Yes. Nice to see you again.” Deaton held out his hand, and Stiles shook it. “We'll fix this, Stiles,” he said reassuringly. “I think I've found a way.”

Stiles nodded jerkily, and sank to sit on the couch.

Deaton turned his attention to Lydia. “The rest of the pack?” He asked.

“On their way.”

“Is Sheriff Stilinski coming?”

Lydia cast a sidelong glace at Stiles before answering. “He said he'd rather not get in the way. I promised to call him as soon as we know if it worked.”

“And the final item on the list?”

“Derek will bring it.”

“Good. Now.” He gestured to the couch. “Make yourselves comfortable. I'll need to go and run some errands and get the ingredients. We'll wait for the whole pack to arrive, and begin after that.”

Lydia smiled sweetly at him. “We won't go anywhere,” she said.

Deaton closed the door behind him, and left them in the silence.

Stiles was glad he had friends who knew he was scared out of his mind. He didn't have to say a word, didn't have to ask to be comforted. They sat curled up on the threadbare couch, Stiles' head pillowed on Lydia's lap, her fingers carding through his hair, over and over again.

“Tell me,” Stiles said to the deafening silence. “Tell me about us.”

Lydia's hands stilled in his hair, until she let out a quiet huff of air. Stiles knew she would guess what he meant. “Derek and you?” She said, sounding amused. “That could take hours.”

“I've got time.”

So Lydia told him.

Her voice was quiet and warm, but Stiles had no trouble hearing her.

She told him about how they had met. How Stiles had been a skinny teenager, and Derek the big bad wolf carrying the guilt of the whole damn world on his back. How he thought he had the blood of his entire family in his hands. She told him how Stiles was running around the woods with Scott, and Derek had followed his nose, his instincts, to the boy who talked too much and moved too quickly, but who smelled like Derek should take a hold of him and he shouldn't let go.

Derek had been a goner the moment he'd laid eyes on him, she said, mirth making her eyes shine.

She said the whole pack knew Derek was head over heels before Derek did. That he was too wrapped up in being angry, and hurt, and running like there was something chasing him, and wouldn't believe he deserved something nice to happen to him for once.

Derek had lost everything, and built a wall so high be could hide behind it.

And Stiles being Stiles, he'd crashed into his life like a hurricane, rolled up his sleeves, and taken that wall apart, stone by stone. For every step that Derek had taken back because Kate Argent was still a bad taste in his mouth, Stiles had taken two forward.

“He was terrified,” she said. “He came up to me one night, and told me I had to convince you to change your mind about him. That people around him always ended up getting hurt or dead. He was scared out of his mind that you'd turn out to be someone he'd just end up losing. Who'd either get hurt or walk away.”

“He didn't lose me, though.”

Lydia stroked a hand through his hair again. “He didn't know you are a hard person to get rid of, Stiles Stilinski.” She shook her head. “I don't much believe in destiny, in higher powers. But the two of you...” She smiled down at Stiles, touched a finger to his nose. “You two morons were like planets in orbit, two masses that couldn't help but be pulled to one another. Derek gravitated to you like you were the sun, a shining star, and the first light he had ever seen.”

“And we started dating?”

“You did.” She smiled gently. “You took your sweet ass time.” Stiles gave a snort and Lydia pinched his side. “But you did, eventually. I always knew you would.”

“And how is that?” Stiles had a feeling she expected her to ask, or would just tell him anyway if he didn't.

“Because of the way he always looked at you. It always reminded me of the quote from that book.” Stiles raised a single eyebrow questioningly, and she went on. “Like you were the ocean, and he was desperate to drown.”

Stiles was quiet for a few heartbeats. “That sounds super mushy,” he said.

Lydia cuffed him on the side of his head gently. “The two of you are super mushy,” she said pointedly. She was quiet for a few minutes, and Stiles could feel her gaze on him. “Gosh, look at you,” she murmured eventually.

“What?”

“You've lost all of your memories and know next to nothing about him, and here you are, already falling in love with him again.”

At some point, the pack started drifting in and settling on the couch and on the floor around them. Scott was first. He poked his head in, Allison in tow, and had sat leaning against Stiles' legs after he'd nodded to let Scott know it was okay to come in. Boyd and Erica followed soon after, with Isaac. Danny and Jackson came in just as Lydia was telling Stiles about his and Derek's first date.

Scott picked up the story with a funny smile on his face.

“Derek was insufferable,” he said. “He was so weird for the first few months after you had agreed that you were, in fact, dating.”

Erica shook her head. “He was so damn thrilled you were finally his. Half the time he looked at you like he wanted to _eat_ you. One time you showed up wearing one of his shirts and I could practically _smell_ how pleased he was.” She smirked. “He couldn't keep his hands off you the whole day.”

“I've never seen him smile so much,” Isaac said quietly. Erica and him were sitting in the armchair by Deaton's desk, Erica meticulously braiding a small section of his hair. Isaac looked totally unfazed. He was chewing on the draw string of his hoodie. “It was kind of eerie before we got used to it.”

A chorus of affirmative murmurs and nods followed.

“He was like super protective, too,” Allison said.

Scott nodded and turned to Stiles. “This one time I shoved you a little too hard when we were practicing. You got a scrape on your cheek.” He grimaced, like he was remembering something painful.

“Derek almost tore your head off,” Allison said, and Scott nodded again, looking a little pale.

“And nearly broke my arm in two places. But I said it was an accident!”

“He said if anyone caused Stiles one more bruise of scrape, he'd chew us up, one by one.” Jackson snorted derisively. “As if.”

“And yet you haven't even dared to tickle Stiles ever since,” Erica mused. She sneered as Jackson flashed his eyes at her.

“Then there was the time when we thought it would be fun to go dancing, and we went to The Jungle.”

Stiles lifted his head from Lydia's lap to look at Scott. “What's The Jungle?” He asked.

“A horror show,” Jackson muttered.

Scott ignored him. “A gay club, but we went there just because it's the only real club in town. Anyway, there was this one dude who apparently had decided he was gonna go home with you. Kept hitting on you even though you said no like ten times. Wouldn't back down.”

“And then Derek saw him squeeze your ass when you turned to walk away,” Lydia said sweetly from above Stiles. Her grin was borderline terrifying. “I'm pretty sure that guy had to change his pants when he got home.”

“Man, I've never seen someone run so fast,” Boyd put in. He was leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed.

“I'm pretty sure that was the only reason he got to keep his hand.”

It went on like that, Stiles asking questions and the pack sharing everything they could remember. Telling Stiles the story of his life, one anecdote at a time.

He wished he could remember even some of it – it sounded like a life he would have been glad to live. Despite the blood and the gore, and the things that went bump in the night, it sounded exciting. It sounded like he had been happy.

▪

Derek arrived when it was getting dark outside. He was carrying a small velvet pouch, and something was rustling softly inside of it as he moved.

He set the bag down on a small stainless steel examination table just outside the open office door before stepping inside. Without a word, Lydia gently ushered Stiles' head from her lap, and gestured for Derek to take her place.

Derek sat down and pulled Stiles back against him. Stiles would have been embarrassed of how clingy he was, but he figured he kind of had a good reason to be. He clutched Derek's shirt in his hands, curled his legs until he was burrowed as closely as he could, head tucked under Derek's chin. “I'm scared,” he said quietly to no-one in particular.

And he was.

He was terrified.

What if he never remembered? What if the life he had lived, his life with Derek, with his pack, was lost forever? If he never remembered, if he never would be himself again, would the pack want him back?

“I'm scared, too,” Derek said, lips against Stiles' hair. “But we'll fix this. Deaton will find a way, and it'll work.”

“What if it doesn't? If I don't get my memories back?”

Derek was quiet for a long time, before he said, “Then we'll just make new ones.”

Fifteen minutes ticked by slowly, and then Deaton stepped thorough the door. He was carrying a wooden box the size of a jewelry box, made of reddish wood and etched with black runes. There was a neat bouquet of tiny white flowers in his other hand.

“Are you ready?” He asked as he set it all down on the examination table, next to the pouch, before wheeling all of it to the office.

Stiles nodded.

As he watched Deaton open the box and take out three small vials, each with a different color liquid, he suddenly remembered something.

“Before we start, could I ask something?”

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at him. Derek made an inquisitive noise. “What is it?”

“I didn't just hit my head and lose my memories, right?” Stiles said. He twisted to look Derek in the eye. “Something attacked me.”

No-one said anything, just looked expectantly at Derek.

“It was a lamia,” Derek said eventually. “Or so we think.”

“Or possibly an empusa,” Deaton said.

“Em- empusa?” Stiles echoed weakly. Derek's hold on him tightened minutely.

“A creature that feeds on humans, particularly males. In their true form they're usually half women, half and insect or a snake, but they have learned to adapt.” Deaton set the vials in a neat line, and took out a marble bowl from one of the shelves lining the wall. He poured the contents of two of the vials into the bowl – the pale blue and amber – and stirred it carefully. It smelled like blood and sulfur. “They disguise as human, perfectly normal-looking young women, if it weren't for the fact that their eyes are the color of milk. Almost colorless.” He crushed the white flowers into the bowl, and the concoction hissed slightly. “They lure young men with their beauty, and suck out their life force.”

“We'd been chasing this one for weeks,” Derek said. His thumb was still rubbing soothingly along Stiles' forearm. “We knew it was in town, but didn't know what it looked like.”

“Until it cornered you in the woods where you chased it,” Scott said darkly from his spot on the floor.

“I was alone there?”

“You tracked it down and took off on your own. You only called for backup when you were already at the preserve. We were a few minutes behind you.” Scott grimaced. His brows were drawn together in a worried line. “I could see it, I could the rotten smell of it, we saw it just before it took a swipe at you. But we weren't fast enough.”

Stiles touched carefully at the bandages under his shirt. “So it took a swing at me. Why did I lose my memory, too?”

Lydia was the one who answered him. “Lamiae and empusae are known to take memories on occasion to make their victims forget them,” she said. “Makes it easier to go unnoticed if no-one can remember them. If they don't kill you, that is, and just decide to take a sip.” She pressed her mouth into a thin line. “We didn't find that out that it had taken yours until after you woke up. We just thought it had just knocked you unconscious.”

Stiles felt kinda nauseous. “So what happened to it?” He wasn't actually sure he wanted to know but he asked anyway.

There was thunder in Derek's expression, a storm gathering in his eyes that turned his gaze black as night. “It's dead,” he said evenly.

Stiles looked around at the pack. “I thought you said we usually tried to solve things more peacefully these days. You know, like, without murder and mayhem?”

“This is different.”

“How do you mean?”

It was Erica who butted in, she had given her up her seat in the armchair to sit cross-legged on the floor by their feet. “You're pack. And no-one hurts one of ours.”

The rest of the pack nodded fiercely. The look on Scott's face was more predatory than Stiles had ever seen it. “I'm not sorry,” he said quietly.

Stiles glanced around the room, wolves in human skin bristling for a fight, and met each of their eyes in turn.

Jackson shrugged from his spot against the wall when their eyes met. “We tore it apart.”

“To shreds,” Boyd said.

Even Danny made a noise at the back of his throat. It sounded satisfied.

Derek's thumb swept over Stiles' cheekbone. “No-one lays a hand on you and gets to walk away.”

The pack fell silent as Deaton lifted the velvet pouch Derek had brought with him and tipped its contents into the liquid. They looked like tiny dry leaves that melted when they came in contact with the bowl's contents. Finally, he poured the last bottle – the liquid in this one the color of seaweed – into the bowl, and turned to face Stiles. “Stiles?” he said. “It's time.”

Stiles got up. He let his hand slid out of the grasp Derek had on him, and walked to Deaton on unsteady legs. “What do I do?”

Deaton poured the potion – now the color of plums and smelling of rotten eggs – into a tall glass, and handed it to Stiles. “Lay back down on the couch. Drink this.”

Stiles took the glass. He sat back down next to Derek, who took his free hand and squeezed it tightly. “And then?” Stiles asked.

“Then we wait.”

Stiles took a deep breath. And drank the whole thing.

And promptly passed out.

▪

There was a strange taste in his mouth. It tasted like ashes, like rust and swamp water. His mouth was dry, but the buzzing in his head was gone. He was lying on the couch on his back, eyes closed.

 _Right_ , he thought sluggishly, _the empusa_. He could remember all of it, how he'd seen the creature just outside the police station and ran after it after it had bolted. How he'd chased it all the way to the preserve before he thought to call for backup - before he had realized it was a trap. It had looked like a giant praying mantis with the face of a woman, and it had been _hungry_. It had laughed shrilly right before taking a swing at him with its razor sharp claws.

The next thing Stiles realized was that there was someone staring at him, he could feel it. When he blinked his eyes open, Derek's face was the first thing to swim into focus.

Stiles smiled blearily. “Heyyy,” he crooned, and reached out a hand to press it to Derek's face. “Hey, you, I've missed you.”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah, babe, it's me.”

And just like that, Derek's whole expression broke open. Like a china plate to a stone floor. “ _Stiles_ ,” he breathed out again.

A door closed somewhere to their left with a quiet click. He heard Scott murmur “It worked” and the rest of the pack squealing shrilly in victory. Stiles ignored them for the time being.

He smiled at the man above him, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Hi.”

When Derek wrapped him up in an embrace that was just on this side of painful, he didn't complain. He didn't say a word about the wetness that stained his shirt at his shoulder where Derek had pressed his face. “I missed you,” Derek mouthed breathlessly into the skin of Stiles' neck.

Stiles wound his arms around Derek's neck. “I missed you, too.”

He pulled back to press a kiss to the corner of Stiles' mouth, his temple, his, nose, and each of his closed eyelids. The last one he pressed firmly on his lips. “ _Stiles_.” He could feel Derek mouthing the word against his lips, over and over again.

“It's me. I'm here, it's okay.”

“I love you.”

“I know.” He tightened his hold on Derek. “Love you too.” He opened his eyes. “Can we go home now?”

▪

An hour later, they were standing at the bottom of the steps leading to their house. Their home.

Stiles turned to look at Derek. Derek, who was still staring at him – he hadn't taken his eyes off Stiles for more than a few seconds at a time since they left Deaton's clinic.

How could he forget. This was someone with their names etched on his skin, carved into his bones. Tear away his name, his memories, his whole damn life and scatter it to the winds, it didn't matter. Derek stayed.  Stiles touched his fingers absently to the side of his neck, where the claim mark of a mate stood out from the rest of his scars. A pale half-moon shaped bite mark.

Without taking his eyes off the house, Stiles held out a hand. At Derek's blank look, he rolled his eyes. “Hold my hand, loser.”

Derek snorted, but he took the hand.

They stepped through the door into the house.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://deadwhitewalker.tumblr.com). I love feedback. And talking nonsense about my ships. And stuff.


End file.
